Beef Plant Planned for Scottsbluff Area

[iamjacobm]

http://www.starherald.com/beef-plant-to ... 9fee1.html

Investors in a proposed beef processing plant say they’re about two months away from choosing a site in western Nebraska for the project.

They envision the plant opening in about two years and processing about 500 cattle per day. After five years it would employ about 550 workers and process 1,500 head per day.

The investors have been meeting with Gering officials about the potential of bringing the plant to the city. Gering and Bridgeport are among sites in the running for the plant, said Josh Berger of Tetrad Property Group of Lincoln and Omaha, which is working on details of the proposal with local investors Pete Lapaseotes and Leo Hoehn and additional investors from South Korea. A third undisclosed site is among “areas that we feel could be a good fit for this project,” Berger said.

Berger said the project has been in the planning stages for several years and would involve exporting up to 40 percent of the processed beef to South Korea and other Asian markets. South Korean investors have been seeking partnerships that would bring more American beef to the tiny nation, which has limited land available for agriculture.

“We think that we have something there that’s a game-changer,” said Berger, who was involved in bringing the Fresh Foods supermarket to Gering and has worked on projects for the new Innovation Campus at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “This is not something on the back of a napkin.”

The ideal site for the project would be about 40 acres, Berger said. The building would encompass about 170,000 square feet. It would include on-site wastewater treatment.

[Louie]

I believe that Scottsbluff has been losing population for awhile, it would be huge for Gering to land this.